A naturist’s view on morals and ethics

Morals and ethics

Things that many people like to hold in high regard. Certainly when it comes to naturism. To many non-naturists, naturism isn’t ethical nor moral.

What are morals?

According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of moral is: of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior.

In that light no one can win the discussion on morality when the two parties are either in favour of, or against the nude lifestyle.

This shows that morals are subjective. Personal. Group or culture related. What one finds right, the other finds wrong. Is eating people wrong? Ask a cannibal.

What are ethics?

According to the same Merriam-Webster, the definition of ethics is: a set of moral principles : a theory or system of moral values, the present-day materialistic ethic, an old-fashioned work ethic —often used in plural but singular or plural in construction, an elaborate ethics, Christian ethics.

So morals are the building blocks of ethics. Define a set of morals, wrap a ribbon around that set and give it a name.

Again this is a subjective assessment. Personal. Cultural. Brought about by your environment.

The ethics of naturism

I am sure everyone can come up with reasons why naturism isn’t ethical. You just have to consider naturism from the mind of a hard-core non-naturist. Suddenly exposing your nude body to others isn’t ethical. Allowing (or even forcing) children to see nudity isn’t ethical.

All those are things that serious naturists have moved past a long time ago. From ‘our’ (in any case my) point of view it’s not ethical to deprive your body from sunlight. It’s not ethical to look at people and judge them based on their clothes.

I’m sure you can all come up with some ethics that contradict between several groups. If you have examples, I’d like to hear about them. 🙂

2 thoughts on “A naturist’s view on morals and ethics”

“moral” is whatever a social group decides it is, period.
In Iran it’s considered moral to hang homosexuals from lamp posts using piano wire for example.
In Nazi Germany it was considered moral to euthenise handicapped children.
For Amazonian tribes it’s considered moral to be naked, which for many European Christians is considered immoral even in front of your own family.

“Ethics” is just as problematic, and often linked with morality.
I find it highly unethical to judge a person’s character by his clothing or lack thereof, yet a lot of people have no problem doing just that, because of the moral framework in which they put themselves (or were put by their culture and lack the mental strength to look beyond, which is the case with most people).